


It's the Thought That Counts

by supernoodle



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Carter is Done, Christmas, Gen, Gift Giving, Reese doesn't know how to people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 03:12:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13067910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernoodle/pseuds/supernoodle
Summary: It would take considerably more willpower than Carter possesses to resist buying it when she sees it on the rack. Besides, she reasons to herself as she leaves the bodega with an extra purchase nestled between the celery and the cold cuts, it's in the spirit of Christmas to give gifts to people who annoy you.





	It's the Thought That Counts

It would take considerably more willpower than Carter possesses to resist buying it when she sees it on the rack. Besides, she reasons to herself as she leaves the bodega with an extra purchase nestled between the celery and the cold cuts, it's in the spirit of Christmas to give gifts to people who annoy you.

She realizes she doesn't have any wrapping paper after digging through two closets and a kitchen cabinet, but if a neat little report on her most recent purchases isn't on Finch's creepy omniscient computers already then she'll eat her badge. Surprise is a moot point with the two of them. He probably knows she's out of wrapping paper, too.

She keeps the gift in the door pocket of her car, because no matter the problem John and his bespectacled friend drop at her feet, it will probably involve careening across half the city.

They save her the trouble of remembering to grab it in the middle of a crisis by calling for a leisurely meet in a cafe near a small park, where the greenery blanketed in snow but is no less active.

She scans the small, open room when she gets in, but predictably there's nobody to see.  
Instead of bothering with frustration, she orders a plate of fries and a coffee as a poor substitute to the sandwich left behind at her desk and picks a small two-person table against a window and near the little heater.

She's only halfway through her fries when she turned back around from watching a toddler waddle through a snowbank to find the man she was looking for, sitting across from her like he'd been there all day, non-smile on his face just as headache-inducing as his occasional smirks.

Instead of her usual exasperated greeting, she lifts her chin, picks up a fry and eats it without breaking eye contact, and slaps her impulse purchase down on the table in front of him.

He breaks eye contact, which he'd been maintaining with the same smugly amused air that had inspired her in the first place, to look down at the little circle of leather with a little crinkle between his eyebrows and the smile changed to a slight frown. She's interrupted his script, and she eats another fry to congratulate herself while he continues to stare down at her gift.

“Do you know something about our case that we don't?” he asks, mild and even as always.

“Merry Christmas,” she says instead of answering, and takes a sip of her coffee.

His forehead creases slightly and his mouth twists. She glances down to check that her prank hadn't changed into something else, and then she remembers who she's talking to and how he's exactly the kind of man to have a bad memory for every holiday. The coffee sits sour in her stomach, but there's nothing to be gained by worrying over some nebulous past trauma that he'd never tell her about and probably wouldn't want her to ask about, so she sets down her coffee and leans forward on the table.

“Little something to keep better track of you,” she says, and flicks the tiny bell with her pinky nail.

It chimes lightly, and he's back to his little smile, but now there's extra little creases of amusement around his eyes that turn the whole thing softer.

“I'm not sure it would match my coat,” he says, but pockets the cat collar before turning solemn and moving on to business.

~ ~ ~

Of course they have a secret lair in an abandoned library. It matches perfectly with Finch's glasses and pressed suits, even if John looks more like a man with a chrome-and-glass apartment hiding racks of guns in the walls and gold bars under the floor.

At the moment even John is at loose ends, or she assumes so from the way he stalked off when Finch said the next step of the plan couldn't go forward until he had completed a delicate piece of work on his computers.

Even if John is actually doing something, he hadn't bothered to invite her, which leaves her wandering the library hoping she doesn't trip a silent alarm or fall through a trap door.

A flash of light off unbroken glass catches her eye, and she works her away around a slump of books fallen from a cracked shelf to stand before a display case standing against a wall.

There aren't racks of handguns or neat rows of ammo ready to load like she might have expected. Instead, a little stuffed giraffe leans in one corner, a pen sketch on lined paper showing Reese standing beside a smaller figure stands in a simple frame, dark and dramatic like the cover of a comic book, and other little incongruous mementos are arranged on the shelves. There is no dust on them or on the display case, and the glass is unsmudged and sparkling. One of the two men is keeping it up, despite its out-of-the-way location.

It feels a little like she's digging through the shoe boxes of memories under someone's bed, but they probably have photographic evidence and a map for the ticket stubs and photo booth picture rolls in her own shoe boxes so she stays.

Then she notices a dark circlet of leather sitting on a shelf farther down. She leans down and looks closer, and recognizes her gag gift from last year's Christmas. The bell is still hanging from it, but now there's also a silvery metal tag hanging next to it.

It's an address tag, with her address and phone number on it. There's nothing to do at this point other than laugh and wonder if John added that tag because he knew that she would one day end up in their secret lair, wandering amongst the shelves until the case caught her eye and she stopped to study its contents.

He couldn't, but it does tell her that maybe there's a new memory for him to think of when someone reminds him of the holidays, something to make him smile one of his little smiles instead of frown. Judging by the other things in the case, he's making a collection of new memories, squirreling them away like his weapons.

There's an uneven shuffle behind her and a creak on the ancient floorboards, and she turns to see Finch watching. His expression is almost fond, aimed at the case, but it stays when he looks to her.

“It's important to remind ourselves of the good that we do, sometimes,” he says, voice quiet. “It's a hard job, but important.”

Then he straightens his shoulders, drawing formality over his bearing like one of his coats.

“I've located our number,” he said, turning and limping away. “I've sent Mr. Reese out, but I need you working on another angle.”

She looked back at the case once before smiling and following him.

**Author's Note:**

> Further little POI fics can be found at [https://captainsupernoodle.tumblr.com/tagged/poi-fic](url) under the tags "poi fic" or "secret agent silliness."


End file.
